I dreamt of Shzaam last night. I can't quite remember what the dream was about, only that it made me a feel a bit uneasy. He was the first thing on my mind when my alarm screamed me back into reality this morning.
I saw Shzaam on Sunday, and likely won't be seeing him for a very long time. His organs are shutting down and food intake is just about impossible. He knows that he's going to die and he's so angry about it. Dying in a hospital, a defenseless victim of the disease, wasn't the way his life was supposed to turn out.
I tried to tell Shzaam how much he means to me. I wanted him to know how much I loved him and the profound impact he's had on my life. While trying to get the words out, Shzaam (pissed off as ever) declared that his family couldn't even bring him the right flavor of Gatorade and that he just wanted to die. I quickly turned the conversation over to his all-time favorite topic: restaurants and food. A smile quickly erupted all over his face when reminiscing about the garlic fries at Flash's and the four-digit tab at Piatini. Ever the phantom gourmet, we talked about the foods that we've eaten and the restaurants that he'll never get the opportunity to try.
Shzaam made a lot of bad decisions about the direction of his life. Though this frustrated me, my friend the Queen Dee taught me to never judge anybody for the decisions they make. While I could never attempt to life a life free of consequences, I certainly learned a lot by watching Shzaam live his. When he passes the world will see him as another AIDS-stricken gay man, but to me he was so much more. Shzaam is my friend and I'm so fortunate that I got to tell him that over the past few months.
Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves. They're not always perfect and it's hard to agree with them 100% of the time. However, people of great character are hard to come by. When such a person enters your life they are truly a gift, and one definitely worth holding on to. Shzaam will be missed more than he can imagine.
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"Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves."
Sherrie, did you know that not too long ago he gave me a placard with those very words inscribed on it? It hangs in my room, one of the first things I see when I wake up.
More than you know, you brightened his life. He would talk about you all the time, eager to know your opinions on everything and anything. What made and makes him happiest was what we all created- a little family for ourselves amidst our busy young adult lives.
That family will live on, and he will always have a place at the tables we sit down at to enjoy garlic fries and whatever other new dishes of life come our way.
He'll be right there with his gramatically incorrect commas,,, probably uttering something completely inappropriate about the waiter. What a fucking diva.
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